Orb Unit Frames

PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS AT BEST A BETA QUALITY ADDON.
DO NOT USE IT UNLESS YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT MEANS.

I have always been very dissatisfied with the rectangular madness that is the predominant Unit Frame addon. Rectangles are practical, I agree, but aesthetically I have always had a fondness of circles in my UI.

I then came across Zork's oUF_D3Orbs. Which are very cool and much of my own addon is based on it as far as concept goes. However, I wanted more orbs! I wanted every unitframe to be an orb.

So I embarked on my own experimentation and found a very efficient way to use standard textures to animate the orbs while also creating all unit frames in orb-form.

This addon is not intended to become a release-level unit frame addon, but to introduce what I have done. Much of it's current code is redundant and not refined. I would love nothing more than for someone else to take off on what I am doing here, like I did with Zork's concept, to make a full-blown orb unit frame addon.

There are some options in the Orbs main menu. More are to come. Also there is a slash command /orbs to enter/leave config mode. To move a unit frame enter config mode and alt-drag the frame.

My plans are to eventually release a solid beta version that can be configured beyond the initial install but not offer a gazillion configuration options.

40300.beta1
-updated for 4.3
-made many small tweaks and changes since the last version.
-updating due to Diablo III being prominent.

40000.beta3
- Added more options to resize/scale.
- Added a Druid eclipse bar and a paladin holy power bar.
- Moved the DeathKnight rune bar to the player frame.

40000.beta2
- Fixed an issue with role assignments.
- Cleaned up the static animation so it was no so dark sometimes.
- Hides the new Blizzard raid frames.

40000.beta1
- I have been slowly updating the code and addressing bugs.

30300.1 *very beta*

Okay, I changed some things since it was known as "Plasma" -

- I removed most of the Diablo 3 art and focused on purely the Orb feel.
- I added 7 new animations. The animations are -

Bubbles
Energy
Plasma
Rain
Smoke
Snow
Sprites
Water

I trashed the old config options and starting to build new ones. The current option to enable/disable units is not stable.

But what really bothered me was the onUpdate. To make this smooth your update timer needs to be really fast and you need a lot of graphics. And since the limitation of space the orbs cannot be that high quality aswell.

What I'm currently using (since m2 animation fogs seem to not work anymore) is a simple rotation that takes advantage of the Blizzard animationgroups. You only need one texture and everything else gets calculated on speed, alpha and degrees.

But what really bothered me was the onUpdate. To make this smooth your update timer needs to be really fast and you need a lot of graphics. And since the limitation of space the orbs cannot be that high quality aswell.

What I'm currently using (since m2 animation fogs seem to not work anymore) is a simple rotation that takes advantage of the Blizzard animationgroups. You only need one texture and everything else gets calculated on speed, alpha and degrees.

Good to see someone else working on animation stuff aswell

Wow, thanks =)

I did try to work with the animation API, but was not comfortable enough with them. I tweaked my OnUpdates so that at least on my system, I could run the frames with no appreciable loss in FPS.

Perhaps if I get back into the addon game again, I will tackle the animation API

And thanks for the info. I did not know that and that certainly is good info to know!

Originally posted by Aurorablade Has anyone had issues with the health orbs not updateing the texture right, and by that i mean instead of shrinking it, it kind of smears upward, my Manaorbs work fine...

Hey maul, you might remember me from macaroon, I've been using your bars for years and I love your work. I am interested in helping with the development of this addon but to be frank I dont know much about mod creation. I think this mod can be really great, if I can get my head around the syntax of this. (I have experience coding in java, c+ and c#)

Great job on this so far. I absolutely love the visual effects available and the general feel this adds to my customized UI. I do seem however to be unable to set my focus while using these frames, thus rendering my focus macros on my hunter useless. With a few more features (focus support, width/height adjustments, pet target, focus target), this project would become my exclusive frames add on, much the same as trinity/macaroon has done for my bars. Thanks again for all the years of work you've put into these.

Originally posted by corithna Great job on this so far. I absolutely love the visual effects available and the general feel this adds to my customized UI. I do seem however to be unable to set my focus while using these frames, thus rendering my focus macros on my hunter useless. With a few more features (focus support, width/height adjustments, pet target, focus target), this project would become my exclusive frames add on, much the same as trinity/macaroon has done for my bars. Thanks again for all the years of work you've put into these.

Oh wow, a new comment!

The focus frame is attached to the target frame on the mana orb and just this second I verified it is working on my end. It is not movable right now however such options could certainly be forthcoming. This is an addon I work slowly on. I myself use it as my primary unit frame as well.

This morning I just fixed an issue with group roles as a Blizzard function changed that I just found out about and I plan on implementing the new secure aura headers for the player frame as well as making the aura buttons skinnable via button facade. I do also have plans to be able to adjust the spacing of all elements.

But now that I know at least one other person wants to use it as their main unit frame, I may work a bit more on it

I have been running ForteX since the patch, since NecrosisLDC isn't tready yet, and I came across your add-on long time ago, when I was searching for a 'Lock specific UI, and thought this has such a cool, "Locky" look to it that I am eager to see how it does since the patch.
I mostly play my 'Lock, so as you can guess, I have a lot of stuff on my screen, and thought this would give me back some screen real estate, what size screen is best to use with this, and/or, is it scaleable? I am glad I revisited your add-on, and I am looking forward to using it to see how it interfaces with the rest of my "Locky" stuff, lolz!

p.s. It kinda reminds me of the UI in early Diablo, where I played a Necromancer!

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